My Sam

I’m sitting on Sam’s bed, waiting while he’s in the bathroom doing the still-very-necessary-before-bed-pee and brushing his teeth. I’m looking at the Angry Bird sheets and thinking about how my entire life, for the past 9 years, can be measured not in coffee spoons (see: TS Elliot) but in heroes.  When I left my husband and tried to make another home for my children, I bought Iron Man sheets.  Kindergarten registration was the beginning of the end for Thomas the Train, and I miss Bear in the Big Blue House desperately. As desperately as I fear what comes next…

Disney Channel and Superheroes have given way to football players and other celebrities. The Avengers accessories in his room are still there but gathering dust, while the Eagles poster is clearly current. The endless toy boxes I cursed have given way to a single shelf of baskets – the action figures suffering from disuse. The bay blades haven’t come out from under the bed in months. The legos still get some traction and I suspect will for some time…but what is prevalent is a desk – a ‘How to Draw Dragons’ book next to balled up failures, Diary of a Wimpy Kid (isn't that about middle school?!), the Nintendo 3DS and iPad.

He enters the room and perhaps because of my mood I can’t help but notice that the baby belly is gone, the armpits hollowed out; he is almost lanky. I remember thighs that encroached over knees before doubling back on themselves; the toddler that couldn't have his adenoids out because he was too fat for them to find a vein. Now, we come home from flag football and I notice an odor and realize that deodorant is next.

“Do you want a story? We can take turns reading pages.” “Nah. Are we goin fishin tomorrow?” “Sure, if it doesn't rain.” “What’s the Weather Channel say?”

Why does my son know what the weather channel is?

I fear these next years. I’ve been around children all my life – nieces, nephews  - and it’s always the same. They’re great till about 8, and I totally get them from 13 on, but between the two? Little aliens. I don’t even understand what motivates them. I lose them. And Sam is 9.

“I’ll take a song though. ‘In My Life’.” Thank you, Universe, for small miracles. Wanting goodnight songs again all the sudden is regression, no doubt a sad sign about anxiety around the many changes in his life – but I’ll take it. I will close my eyes and do my all to provide a voice sweeter than any he can recall, opening them only to make eye contact with “In my life…I love you more.” And he will of course avoid eye contact. Because it’s weird now, somehow. But I will always offer it, and I will wait with a mother’s patient-as-can-be heart until he’s comfortable enough with himself to return it again.

It’s a crazy thing, sons. I’ve never stayed with a boy who broke my heart so many times, and I never will. Just my Sam.